18 Link Building Strategies That Really Work
Backlinks or inbound links, i.e. links that refer to yours from other websites, show search engines that your content is of high quality and therefore suitable for a top position in search results. Getting others to link to your content isn’t that easy, however the link building works?
Anyone who goes wrong when building links can even be penalized by Google and lose visibility. We are therefore showing you 18 safe link-building strategies that are guaranteed to work. Generate more backlinks with our free link building guide
Table of Content
Basics of link building: The link is an important ranking factor
A link points from one document on the Internet to another. Documents can be, for example, websites, videos, audio files, or PDF documents. If you refer to another document yourself from your own site, set a link. Conversely, if another website refers to your content, it is referred to as a backlink.
Because links connect websites to one another, they are of enormous importance to search engines. Because the web crawlers with which search engines search the Internet, use the links to move from page to page. At the same time, search engines interpret these links as recommendations.
Websites that are linked often have a better chance of ranking well – after all, they are referred to by many other websites, so the linked source seems to contain valuable information.
What is ” link building “?
Link building (link building) describes the process of gaining backlinks for your own website. Not only the number of backlinks is relevant, but also the source. The closer the linked page is thematic to your own website and the more authority it has, the better the influence on the ranking.
Building backlinks with White Hat SEO: Use Sensible Link Building Methods
Link building strategies at a glance
- Offer potential linkers high-quality content
- Mention experts and influencers
- Let experts contribute to the content
- Interact with linkers on social media
- Write guest articles for other blogs
- Give expert interviews
- Comment on someone else’s blog
- Collect and process relevant data
- Offer webinars, freebies, or tools
- Advertise job and internship offers on the website
- Ask for links
- Lectures at specialist conferences and at universities
- Get links from non-profit organizations
- Ask for a link afterward
- Link yourself
- Become a Wikipedia expert
- Track down broken backlinks
- Submit a review online
The times when website operators could simply buy backlinks and thus achieve the same success are long gone. Today Google and Co. punish users who do not adhere to the webmaster guidelines. You should therefore play by the rules of the search engines and earn backlinks honestly as part of your marketing.
The following 18 strategies will help you build links cleanly and fairly:
1. Offer potential linkers high-quality content
Make a list of people and companies who may be interested in your content. Whenever you publish content, offer it to suitable potential linkers. It could help cooperation partners, bloggers, and journalists, for example, if they report live from industry events or provide information on news in your subject area on your blog.
You have a good chance of being linked if a potential link provider has already published an article on the topic in question and you are now providing further information with your content. You can also produce targeted content that complements the linkers’ articles well. In this case, simply write a friendly email and explain how a link to your content would enhance the existing article.
2. Mention experts and influencers
What experts are there (apart from you) in your field? What other companies are known? Which influencers have a high reach in your niche? Mention these people and companies in your article. Then, stick to tip number one and write to these people directly to point them out about the article. With a little luck, influencers will spread your content further.
3. Let experts contribute to the content
The other way around, too, becomes a shoe: Ask experts whether they would like to add a quote or an expert tip to your article. As soon as you publish your content, send the link to the relevant person. Chances are she’ll share it on her network.
4. Interact with linkers on social media
There are sure to be bloggers, journalists, magazines, scientists, or companies who specialize in your topic. Follow them on social media like Facebook and Twitter, like their posts, and make meaningful, topic-related comments. In this way, you carefully draw attention to yourself and your content and invite you to link.
5. Write guest articles for someone else’s blog
There is usually an author box in guest articles. This is a great way to link to your website. Alternatively, you can set a thematically appropriate link to your own content in the article itself. Guest articles are helpful for both sides: You get backlinks and can position yourself as an expert in your field, while your cooperation partner receives fresh content for his blog.
6. Give expert interviews
Establish yourself as an expert in your field by accumulating specialist knowledge and making a name for yourself, for example, by writing and sharing posts on career networks. Once you have been recognized as an expert in your field, you should give interviews for traditional and online media as well as third-party blogs. You can find suitable pages by trying various Google search operators, i.e. special search commands that expand and refine the regular Google search:
- Sector name + intitle: Interview -job
- Competitor + intitle: Interview -job
- Keyword / competitor + intitle: guest post / guest author / expert post …
- Keyword / competitor + “write for us”
- … There are no limits to your creativity!
It is up to you whether you prefer to express yourself in writing or orally. Either way, at least the interview host will link to your website – and if what you say is helpful, backlinks from viewers or readers will follow.
7. Comment on someone else’s blog
Most of the time, when you leave comments on other blogs, you have the option to post a link to your website. These links are usually given a “no follow” tag and therefore contribute less to the ranking. But they belong to a natural link structure.
In addition, they can still make the blog owners and other readers aware of you. In order not to attract negative attention at this point, your comments should offer clear added value – for example, helpful approaches or (well-founded) further perspectives on a topic.
8. Collect and process relevant data
The Internet is full of knowledge, but it is not always clearly presented. Make the effort to collect comprehensive data on a topic that is relevant to your customers. Your readers will be grateful if you present the data in an appealing and easy-to-understand way – for example in tables and infographics. You can then also offer these to potential linkers.
Research pages that mention the statistics you picked up and see where those pages link. Sometimes the links are out of date or lead to a page in a different language. In these cases, write to the webmaster and point out that you are offering an alternative link.
9. Offer webinars, freebies, or tools
If you have the opportunity, webinars or freebies, such as checklists, instructions, or small e-books, can not only serve as lead magnets but also increase your reach. If you find your free offer useful, you may share it with friends, acquaintances, and colleagues and maybe even link it on your own blog.
You can create a particularly strong incentive, for example, by programming a small tool that helps users in their everyday work. You then point this out to all potential linkers who address a target group similar to yours. Again, use Google search operators or tools like BuzzStream and Ahrefs to find potential link providers.
10. Post job and internship offers on the website
Do you have a job or an internship to offer? You can also use this for your link building. If you advertise the position on your website, job portals, as well as bloggers and private individuals, can link to it. Also, write to city and university websites to draw attention to your offer.
11. Ask for links
It doesn’t always have to be complicated: Just ask friends, colleagues, and business partners with thematically appropriate pages whether they would like to link to your website.
12. Lectures at specialist conferences and at universities
If you give lectures at specialist conferences, industry events, or at universities, you can in many cases have a backlink to your own page set on the associated website. Don’t miss it!
13. Allow non-profit organizations to link
Do you volunteer or does your company donate to a non-profit organization? Then ask there if a link could be placed on your website as a thank you.
14. Ask for a link afterward
Other offers are often referred to on websites and blogs – but not always with a link. If you see your name, that of your company, or that of one of your products without a link, write a message to the respective webmaster.
You can also search directly for pages that mention you but don’t link to your website. There are various tools for this – for example Ahrefs. There you enter the term to be searched for in the “Content Explorer” and exclude your own website with the command “-site: your-website.de”. You can use various filters – including page rank, language, and the number of visitors to the pages you have examined – to limit the results.
The tool also offers the option of checking directly whether the individual domains are already linked to your domain. This is particularly suitable for identifying link options for completely new referral domains. While there is a fee to use the tool, you can try it out for a week for $ 7.
After all filters and criteria have been set, the list can be exported and systematically checked – for example with the help of Screaming Frog or BuzzStream – for existing backlinks and anchor texts. BuzzStream is also suitable for emailing potential linkers directly.
You can also set a Google alert so that you will immediately notice in the future when someone mentions you. You will then receive a notification as soon as your name appears on a page.
15. Link yourself
One hand washes the other – this also applies to link building. In other words: If you place links to other pages in your content, the page owners will take good note of this – and maybe return the favor when the opportunity arises. Do not forget to notify potential link providers of your new link via email.
16. Become a Wikipedia expert
If you do a good job and write for the huge online encyclopedia Wikipedia, you can – occasionally and with care – include one or the other link to your own website as a source. But don’t overdo it here, as the user-generated content of Wikipedia is based on trust and should not be colored too much by individual interests.
17. Find broken backlinks
Another way is to research websites with backlinks that are not working properly. This can concern backlinks to your own site, but also backlinks to competitors. If you find such broken links (for example with the help of tools such as SEMrush ), you can contact the relevant admin or site operator. If it is a broken backlink to your own site, you should ask for correction. If, on the other hand, you have found a broken link to a competitor, you can seize the opportunity and offer the admin a link to your related content as an alternative.
18. Submit a review online
Another opportunity to build a backlink is to rate other companies or their products. For example, if you use a service and are satisfied with it, you can write a recommendation to the provider and identify yourself as the author of your linked company website under the testimonial. If the other website publishes your review, you have created another backlink in this way, as it were.
A well-thought-out link building strategy will get you ahead in search engine results
High-quality backlinks for your website are an important ranking factor. However, link building takes time. Stay tuned, produce high-quality content and build relationships with cooperation partners, bloggers, journalists, and experts – then search engine optimization will certainly pay off.
Also Read: How can you use lead generation for your company?
